


Moonlight Sonata

by TheOneAndOnly1993



Series: Love in Kamihama [1]
Category: Magia Record: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story, Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Genre: Class Differences, Gen, Protective Siblings, Sibling Love, Threats of Violence, Twins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-11
Updated: 2019-10-11
Packaged: 2020-12-09 07:16:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20990954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheOneAndOnly1993/pseuds/TheOneAndOnly1993
Summary: Tsukuyo and Tsukasa wished to never hate one another again. However, this doesn't mean their relationship is conflict-free, or that they view themselves as highly as one another.





	Moonlight Sonata

**Author's Note:**

> "Now I too have become able to support Tsukuyo-chan, right? ...Tsukuyo-chan is always perservering through something, right? That's why I'm always smiling like this. If, by being cheerful like this, whatever Tsukuyo-chan is enduring becomes just a bit easier on her, I'd be glad," - Tsukasa Amane
> 
> "Conflict brings with it suffering," - Tsukuyo Amane

_My name is Tsukuyo Amane, formerly Akidzuki. It still is on official papers, and to the rest of the world. But in my heart, I am Amane. Like my sister._

_Oh, my heart is in such terrible pain... little sister..._

_If you're conscious, does yours feel even a modicum of grief on the other side of this door? Or is this the first time we've failed to naturally empathize with one another?_

_I hope that it does. Please. It feels like our relationship depends on whether or not we can come to an understanding. Oh, I cannot stand this... this feeling that's making it hard to breathe, constricting my heart. _

_My heart that wished, above all else I could possibly have in this world, to never hate Tsukasa-chan ever again. When you asked Kyubey-sama the same for me, with zero hesitation, my heart had soared: everything in the world at your fingertips... and you chose hateful, conceited me. _ _It was beyond doubt that you were the one:_

_My first, my best, my only friend._

_My forever family._

_The missing half to my moon. The final and only piece I needed to make my self complete. I knew it to be true, all because you wished for the same, feeling just as strongly as I did._

_Or s-so I thought._

_Perhaps if I start at the beginning - perhaps doing so will clear my heart of this insufferable despair and clarify the situation._

* * *

The moon was as high as it was full. The cherry blossom tree adorning the shrine Tsukasa and her sister were named after rustled, whispering gently where the wind did not.

A spearhead's immaculate tip prodded the soul gem resting upon Tsukasa's breast, piercing her heart.

That's how it felt, at least, and it burned. "Tell me where your base is," murmured her captor. 

Tsukasa barely heard - her eyes, her thoughts, everything was focused on the absolute horror painting her older sister ghostly white. "Tsukuyo-chan..." For her sake, for the flute shaking in her fists, for her bosom beginning to heave, Tsukasa donned a reassuring grin. "Tsukuyo-chan, it'll be fine. Don't tell her anything, for we have the advantage. We have her fr-_h'iends!_" Naname's arm was so tight, so hateful. She was serious. 

_Be strong. Be strong for the Magius, for Tsukuyo-chan. _

"The next word will be your last," Naname muttered in her ear. 

"Y-you're going to such barbaric extremes for a handful of employees," said Tsukuyo, voice wavering and betraying her efforts to sound collected.

Naname's cheek shifted, relieving Tsukasa's temple of beaded sweat. "I don't have time to play around with you. My 'last word' rule now applies to you. Choose it carefully."

Tsukuyo gulped, wringing her flute. "What are your demands?" She already knew, but even Tsukasa wouldn't be able to think of something better if their roles were reversed. Just the thought of seeing Tsukuyo like this was gutting. 

But they both had their duties to the Magius.

And yet, also each other.

Naname answered, "As I've said, the location of the Wings of the Magius's hideout. My teammates. Either will do." 

Tsukasa inhaled sharply to what Alina would do to them, inadvertently grabbing Tsukuyo's attention. She graced her with another smile, as calm a smile as she could muster. _I'll be fine,_ she hoped her eyes pleaded, _you'll be fine. Do not. Betray. The Magi-"AAH!"_ Her chest, it burned as if seared by a smoldering iron!

"Tsukasa-chan!"

Naname twisted her spear again. "AAH!"

"If you think I won't do it, I will," she threatened. "I've lost too much family to care for the feelings of a little sociopath like this one."

Tsukuyo's breath hitched, feebly covered by flute-filled hands. Her cheeks glistened; moonlight specks in her eyes danced as her gaze shifted from Naname's to Tsukasa's. "Can't we possibly fight for the information?"

"We all know who will win. I don't have the time to play around with you two. Innocent lives could be at stake this very moment." 

A sigh - one that hitched twice. "Must you be so barbaric?" breathed Tsukuyo. 

"Coming from one who allows innocent civilians to die by the score? For the sake of us Magical Girls, who are now trying to skirt their debt to Kyubey?" Naname readjusted, squeezing her throat so tight that Tsukasa was certain she couldn't play her flute and fight if freed right now. "You truly disgust me. And my patience is wearing thin."

Tsukuyo scoffed wetly. "You brute. You're no different - a girl who threatens us with certain torture one way or another, because she cannot accept the choices her associates made."

"I'm starting to consider shattering this one's soul gem here, and then breaking your limbs one by one until you tell me what I want to know."

Tsukuyo cried out.

_'Don't!'_ mouthed Tsukasa. Perhaps if Naname followed through with her threat, and Tsukuyo attacked too ferociously to be dealt with slowly... perhaps, then, they would die here and now, passing on together, honor in-check, as opposed to meeting a worse fate at the hands of Alina Gray.

Maybe, if she played their personal lullaby, Tsukuyo could knock out Naname before she could recover from destroying Tsukasa's soul gem. Then she could escape with her life and the information. Hopefully. If she just forgot about Tsukasa and saved herself...

_She's worth it, _Tsukasa decided without hesitation. _She has an important life to live. A destiny. Mine own future is just housewife for father and my brothers. _She tapped upon Naname's arm twice. Air passed a little more freely - good, she hasn't gone completely mad, was willing to do anything to make this transaction easier.

Tsukasa could only manage, _"Moonlight Sonata-!"_ before Naname clenched her throat again, tighter and harsher than before.

"Tsukasa-chan, no!" whimpered her dear sister, eyes pleading, begging, for Tsukasa to think back on her more worldly upbringing for a different way out of this mess. A better one. She understood, for what Tsukasa had suggested would surely result in her swift death, but also Yachiyo Naname to fall into a deep, deep slumber under the spell of their song.

In their magical girl attire, Beethoven's sonata became a magical lullaby - one the two of them would play for each other at this very shrine, and sleep together. As far as their families knew, they were at a friend's house, which wasn't entirely untrue.

Perhaps suggesting to weaponize something so sacred, and sacrifice her twin sister, was too thoughtless for Tsukuyo to bear: "I don't know what to do, Tsukasa-chan. I don't know what to do, but I can't do that. I can't do that..."

But there was nothing else. All she could think about was Tsukuyo, how painful it would be for her to suffer whatever Alina would inflict should she spill the beans; the guilt she would feel after this horrible night was behind them, should they miraculously make it out alive and intact, for allowing Naname to get the drop on them and nearly ruin her little sister's life.

_But you saved mine, _thought Tsukasa. _Every day between this one and the first we'd met had been salvaged by you, dear sister. _Tsukasa forced bravery upon her face, and forced her next words with strength that couldn't compare. "It'll... be... fine... Play... our..."

"Ts-Ts-Tsukasa-ch-ch-chan... Th-that's enough..."

_'Love you,'_ mouthed Tsukasa.

_"No!"_

The pitch of her cry twisted Tsukasa's heart worse than Naname's spear ever could. "Not... worth... it," she managed with a smile.

_'I can overcome anything with a smile!' _Tsukasa Amane lived by these words, always. When Father would complain of her poor time management, she would smile. When negative, lonely thoughts crept into her brain, she would smile over them. When Tsukuyo once dared treat her as something of a mirror, only as something not to be when in public, all the while embarrassed by her "uncouth" twin, Tsukasa smiled.

But beneath that smile, she had hated. Hated Tsukuyo. Hated the way she'd wave Tsukasa's "brutish" behavior in an effort to "fix" her, pretending not to be humiliated by their blood relation.

Hated the shame this made her feel.

What petty nonsense. So childish! Splitting up and falling back into the drudgery of their daily lives, the grind Tsukasa endured for her ungrateful family, made such behavior seem like genuine madness, looking back.

That didn't mean arguments were a thing of the past. Far from it! But they were never in ill-will, for Tsukasa, unlike the old days, couldn't find it within herself to defend her narrow-minded points. Tsukuyo, likewise, would be more empathetic and open-minded to the thoughts of her twin sister.

_Ah,_ she thought, the arm lassoed around her throat keeping this in her brain, _imminent death is often said to make one's life flash before their eyes._ Tsukasa's "life" being just the parts where Tsukuyo existed, and gave it meaning: Love.

A reason to be.

Curious - would Tsukuyo be flattered, exasperated, or appalled by such a lack of self-care?

Wait.

The answer was right there in front of her, collapsed on her knees and wailing, flute clutched to her breast. _What are you doing, Tsukuyo-chan?! You're strong! Fight your heartache! SAVE YOURSELF! _This damnably loving fool, she was going to get herself killed! She was going to-!

And the shrine's cobblestone rushed up to meet her, so sudden it was that Tsukasa failed to realize before it kissed her face. The pain registered only after hearing Tsukuyo's cry of her name, after she was suddenly constricted yet again but by a hold far more loving.

Then, and only then, did air return to her lungs, did the relief of freedom overwhelm her - the relief that Tsukuyo and her were together again after what felt like an eternity.

"What... is happening to me?" she heard Naname mutter. "This... this isn't me." And then, "I'm... sorry. For wasting your time."

She left sometime between then and when the crying stopped, not that either of them cared. Especially not Tsukuyo.

* * *

They spent a long time holding one another in the shadow of their favorite cherry blossom. Neither dared change out of their uniforms - Tsukuyo, like her sister, likely feared Naname to change her mind, cruel schizophrenic that she is.

'Likely.'

A thought, a gut feeling more like, flashed forth in Tsukuyo's mind, clenching her belly and making her sick. For Tsukasa was shaking in her arms, her heart slamming against Tsukuyo's knuckles as she continued protecting the soul gem of her sister. She was terrified.

_They_ were terrified: Tsukasa was more than happy to leave this world and Tsukuyo behind but she was terrified all the same.

"Why?" The word tumbled forth. Tsukuyo only realized it was from her own lips as Tsukusa jolted, staggering in her quivering rhythm.

"Tsukuyo-chan?" she squeaked. "...Are you... okay?"

It was out. No sense in falling back. No good would come of it, of bottling it up - a harsh lesson both learned the one and only time they ever truly fought. "Why were you so eager to leave me?" she murmured, so ashamed she did so into Tsukasa's shoulder.

A damp gasp, a broken chuckle. "So blunt," she remarked. "Most would gracefully lead into the question."

Tsukuyo's heart turned black and rotting from a disease of old memories - of her social ineptitude being the root cause of their falling out. Even so...

"I don't care," she said. "I don't care, I don't care, I don't care. I don't care about most, I care even less about the standards of social, s-social, _s'hocial-!"_

Naname was ready to murder her little sister.

"Shh." A firm hand gripped the back of Tsukuyo's head, an arm encircled her throbbing shoulders.

"S-sister..." She gripped Tsukasa's crimson gown tight. Never - never would she let go again, lest Tsukasa attempt something so insane and disregarding of their sisterhood again.

"Tsukuyo-chan..." That damn, careless smile was audible, so strong, so painful to think about now. "My sister, it's fine. We're _fine_. Naname Yachiyo hadn't lost her humanity. She let us go-"

"But you had!" Tsukuyo was suddenly looking into the gaping, runny eyes of her twin sister. She was so close to never seeing them again. "You were going to leave me, Tsukasa-chan! You were going to leave me broken and alone in a place where I couldn't reach you!"

"Better that than - _open your eyes,_ dear sister!" Her hair was grabbed, strands pulling free of its singular bond as she was yanked closer to Tsukasa. Her eyes were all there was - always, even in Tsukuyo's dreams. "You must know my reasoning? For it is not so pretty, but it's a choice I would make again!"

"You wouldn't dare..."

"I can, I do. I would dare this entire world if it made the mistake of threatening you like that."

Tsukuyo loved her so dearly. Loved her so much it hurt, to lose that forever... "Have you always had such flippant disregard for your own life?" Her throat closed as she tried to intake air, leaving her a coughing mess that brought Tsukasa's hand upon her back three times. "For mine? Does my grief matter so little compared to the harm I would endure, the guilt I'd shoulder?!"

"I was doing it for you!" she cried.

"Perhaps you were, but I have reason to believe you were doing it for yourself as well! Tell me sister, do you dislike yourself so overwhelmingly?"

A hitched gasp, Tsukasa lurching back with startled deer-in-the-headlight eyes. Oh, yes, she knew her little twin all too well. "Tsukyo-chan... I..."

"Wasn't considering how such an act would make me feel," she finished. "Now answer me: had you always perceived yourself so poorly beside me?"

"You were all that I could think about, Tsukuyo-chan!"

That wasn't an answer, merely emphasizing what was already hypothesized. "Exactly!" she rasped. "You only considered myself. How lowly do you think about yourself, to so boldly tease self-destruction for my sake?"

And the warmth around her ears was gone, the hands which gripped and loved her so fiercely placed where they seemed to truly be: around Tsukasa's self. "I see... so you're disgusted."

Everything ground to a halt - as if Tsukuyo were struck by a meteor, crushed right then and there, no longer in their true birthplace with the cool night air stirring her hair, but a specter watching from outside.

She had never felt so far from Tsukasa since before making her wish. "I am not," breathed Tuskuyo. "But these sentiments which drove your actions tonight concern me-"

"So what if they do?!" Both of them winced - Tsukasa, shocked; her sister, having never been on the receiving end of such a tongue-lashing in their post-wish relationship. "What if they do?" she whispered to the ground. "I would... I'd... _I..._"

"Tsukasa-chan?" She grabbed her hand, held it before her. It was so cold.

"I'd let this whole world," Tsukasa swallowed, "I would allow it to burn to ashes if it meant saving you."

"Even yourself?"

"Y-yes? Yes! What does it matter?! Aren't you happy that someone cares about you that much?!" Her eyes flashed, glistening in the moonlight. "I can't stand the thought of you suffering if I could have done something about it!"

"Are you so hateful of yourself that you failed to consider what it would do to me regardless - to live on without you, to live knowing you suffered for my sake?!" The shrine, Tsukasa, everything became a blur, then shadowed as she covered her eyes of the painful sight. "Tsukasa-chan... I can't... lose you..." There was a shaking, broken, inhale.

A long, fractured exhale.

And silence.

"You're my everything," Tsukuyo continued, speaking from the emotional stream pouring from her heart. "I'd have nothing without you - my classes, my family, my lessons and my social status: none of it matters if you're not a part of it!"

Goodness, it hurt so much. To think that Tsukasa cared so little about herself, she didn't even realize how that would make Tsukuyo feel...

"Did you," she choked, "did you ever, once, consider what such flippancy for your own well-being would do to me?" And then struck a chilling thought: "Do you see yourself as of lesser value... because of the perceived value of my more privileged life?"

Despair. Ache. Ringing. It was all there was. Tsukuyo surely was primed to erupt into her Doppel of Seclusion - her utter loneliness, her desperate need for her sister made manifest.

"I must excuse myself."

The utterance of those words crashed forth as Tsukasa gave herself permission to stand - bared knee red and spotted with loose pebbles. Higher up, crowned by their glowering namesake, the hollow face of a stranger whom loosely resembled Tsukuyo's strong, caring twin sister.

In a tone to match, she said, "I apologize profusely for wounding you so deeply, Tsukuyo-chan. I need time. Alone. For reevaluation."

'Alone.'

'Alone.'

_'Alone.'_

A terror so potent it nearly gagged Tsukuyo as she choked out, "F-for what?"

"Our relationship." And the terror exploded, eviscerating everything that Tsukuyo knew - herself, her memories, her love - with relentless, wretched shrapnel.

Shrapnel in the form of thoughts, of feelings: _Is she going to leave me?_

_Did I overstep my boundaries?_

_Did I offend her? Is she going to leave me? Is she going to leave me?!_

Tsukasa's back was to her. Tsukuyo's bottom lip kissed the chilled surface of her flute.

_She's going to leave me. It's all my fault._

She couldn't find the breath to exhale; Tsukasa's back was growing smaller, her entire being in sight, twin tails swaying step by grief-drunk step.

_I'm ignorant. She's going to leave me again because I've been blind to her obvious insecurities._

But then Tsukasa stopped. Was... was she returning?

Without turning her head, Tsukasa said, "Have a good night, Tsukuyo-chan. I will text you soon."

That's what did it: not "tonight," not "tomorrow." Not what she was accustomed to, but rather an uncertain, offhand remark of potential future correspondence.

It was too much.

Far too much.

Without grace or care or any consideration for her sister's desires or well-being, Tsukuyo blew into her flute like a smithy's bellows, fingering the appointed pattern of passageways in an eighth of the time it should be. 'Moonlight Sonata' trilled forth, no room for consideration of the grace Tsukuyo prided herself with.

And Tsukasa Amane collapsed to her knees at the entrance of their shrine, then upon her side.

Only then, did Tsukuyo ask herself what she'd just done.

*****************************

The unsightly present was back, and it was no prettier than the first time Tsukuyo recalled the evening. It didn't make better sense of what had occurred; didn't make it hurt less, didn't justify what she'd done.

None of which included their place of rest, so far from her current realm of caring: a cheap motel a block away. Tsukuyo cared not about their state of dress, the exhaustion screaming in her bones, nor the curious, perverse look of the clerk behind the front desk. She cared even less about the quality of the establishment, its cleanliness, or the dent in her allowance. She was more than happy, in fact, with tucking Tsukasa into the one and only bed like any good elder sibling would, and even a little eager to distance herself instead of joining under the covers, instead electing to hole up in the bathroom in the off-chance Tsukasa awakened, and Tsukuyo's loathsome self was the unpleasant thing she first laid eyes on.

Back flat against the door, Tsukuyo hugged her knees tighter in a vain attempt to stifle the throbbing in her chest.

Would Tsukasa do the very same? In some unlikely fantasy, where she dared turn their special ballad against her twin in a pitiful display of co-dependence? Tsukuyo's heart ached, yearning. It was most upsetting to think otherwise - that Tsukasa wouldn't dare overstep this invisible boundary she perceived between them for her own well-being.

Was it a result of their varying social classes, still?

Did Tsukuyo fail to notice because of her social ineptitude? Her conceit in the strength of their bond? Was she the one who never reached out to eliminate that barrier?

_But we both agreed,_ she thought, _in the hospital, the day our hearts became entwined, we agreed to one another that our families didn't matter. Only us. So why...?_

_Why is there still this divide between us?!_

_"Ts-Tsukuyo-chan?"_

Her heart, her thoughts, everything froze at once.

_"Are you in the bathroom?"_ Perhaps it would be better if she left, like she wanted. "_...No. No she wouldn't dare step foot in a place like this unless she had to. Which means I'm... I've been-!"_

Tsukuyo was facing a shadow-drenched bedroom before she realized it for herself - light flooded in behind her, bathing her pale, wide-eyed little sister, who still looked very much afraid of her current predicament.

"Tsukuyo-chan..."

"Tsukasa-chan..."

At once, they said, _"I'm so sorry!"_

True to her upbringing, Tsukasa clawed forth from under the covers to the foot of the bed. The sight, the thought, would never again annoy Tsukuyo's refined sensibilities like it used to. The sight, the desperation in her movements, all of it was so flattering, especially now, after her transgressions.

_"I'm sorry for hurting you!"_ they chimed as one.

Tsukasa spoke faster, "I didn't mean to hurt you! My intention was never to consider your feelings as lesser than mine-!"

Tsukuyo didn't care - didn't care for refinement, her petty feelings. Only the pain her sister was in, a desire which moved Tsukuyo's legs, pumped them across the room, and threw her arms around Tsukasa.

"We're both fools," Tsukuyo breathed. "I'm equally as guilty, little sister. All this time, you've perceived yourself as something lesser. Because I never, not once, spoke of how important you are to me. My damned posturing and grandeur kept my feelings in check... And I'm truly sorry for that."

Trembling hands clenched the fabric on her back. "M-me neither. Me neither, Tsukuyo-chan, I'm no more open than you. I just, I... _I... I couldn't let that monstrous Magical Girl have the chance to hurt you!_"

A stifling cry into her shoulder. Tsukasa continued, "You're my whole world, and I was too obsessed with preserving that to consider your feelings on the matter. I'm so weak, Tsukuyo-chan, I'm so stupid and weak and you're so much stronger than-"

A kiss on the forehead ceased the flow of words. Tsukuyo's lips popped just as gently as she removed them, kneeling so could be at eye level. Like before, but reversed, she cradled her sister's crying face. "Enough of that," she said. "You are wise, and you're fearless-"

"M'not." Tsukasa's gaze fell aside, pupils sinking beneath a well of tears. "I only smile like that because I don't want you to worry."

Tsukuyo's heart exploded into warmth, love, and a mess of other things so pleasant she couldn't help but titter like a schoolgirl. "That's what it means to be fearless, silly. But what worries me... what _upset_ me... was realizing the pain you held so close even I couldn't see it."

"I just didn't want to waste your time," Tsukasa confessed. "We have such limited time together as it is, what with your responsibilities and mine. I didn't want to spoil our ritual with my... my creepy, needy, and toxic inferiority complex."

"I feel the same. Always." Tsukuyo spoke before she had a chance to think the words. "Tsukasa-chan, you have so much knowledge, useful knowledge, applicable to life that's helped me become a person. _A real person._ Clearly, though I still have a ways to go..."

Desperate hands grabbed her by the wrists. "Don't say that. Please. It's my fault for electing not to be as honest with you as you... usually are with me." She colored her cheeks red. "It's just that... the last thing I wanted you to feel was yet another responsibility, in the form of assuring me that I'm worth your time... Especially... when... I don't believe I am."

Tsukuyo didn't know what to say. What could she? She was equally as guilty, for her own poor self-perception beside Tsukasa was hidden all the same.

But no longer.

Never again would Tsukuyo allow either of them to hesitate. Expressing their feelings around each other, unfettered and unafraid, it's what gave relationships their strength as much as all the rest.

She released Tsukasa's head, only to ensnare her person and reel her in close. She was warm, she was shaking. "I love you," Tsukuyo whispered. "So, so much. Thank you for existing in my life."

Tsukasa belted out a whine into her shoulder, soaking the fabric as evidence of her love, of her fearlessness to be who she truly was. She was more real than Tsukuyo, by far. "I'm-I'm sorry for doubting you, big sister! I promise I'll never do that again!"

Tsukuyo smiled, squeezed her eyes shut of an oncoming downpour. "Good." She stroked her throbbing back. "I vow the same. You and me, we're the only ones who matter in our world. We came in together, we'll leave it together. Hand-in-hand as well."

"R-right." Tsukasa gripped her hand tight, the other around Tsukuyo's grief-weighted soul gem. "Sister... we should purify ourselves. At the shrine."

"Exactly what I was thinking, Tsukasa-chan."

* * *

At the Moon Shrine's apex, the very place of whom the twins were named after, hovered a globe shut off from the rest of the world, the unnecessary place.

Within its symmetrical halves were two worlds of polar opposites. One was filled to burst with water - a world at once purifying and regal, yet wholly suffocating. The other enclosed the true beauty of the planet: fauna, consistent in their reliable form, shape, and purpose. Uniform, and suffocating by nature of their rigid design. 

But together, they formed a beautiful whole that none else would ever understand.

For within its core, encircling one another slowly as ying and yang often did, the Amane sisters held each other tight, their eyes drawn shut in blissful sleep.


End file.
